City Nature Challenge brought to you by iNaturalist - 24-27th April

Across bubble country, 2000 kiwis beavered away through the lockdown and recorded 22 000 observations of 3500 species, all safely archived on our StayiNatHome NZ project - https://inaturalist.nz/projects/stayinathome-nz?tab=species. Congratulations you! But, that’s not all! Tomorrow we begin the global City Nature Challenge (CNC) - https://inaturalist.nz/projects/city-nature-challenge-2020-new-zealand alongside 200 cities around the world.

Now you’ve discovered all those greens, mushies and creatures under the nose you never knew you had, we are ready – are you ready? … to use that neighbourhood knowledge and pent-up energy, and show the world what we are made of – a smorgasbord of unique nature blended with amenity and productive species, as well as pests and weeds.  Everything and any living slime is fair game. Ever wondered what those lichens are on your letterbox or the native herbies in your lawn – before you sanitised it? Now’s the time to find out and reconnect with your inner gunge. If forest bathing is so good for you – imagine lawn bathing, leaf bathing, vege bathing, flower bathing, compost bathing, maybe even bathroom bathing … There is life everywhere. Just record it now.

So get out over the next 4 days (starting midnight Thursday to midnight Monday) in and around your home and bubble walks, and record more of the same and things you meant to, but didn’t quite get to during the lockdown. If you are in Ōtautahi, Ōtepoti or Tāmaki Makaurau, everything you record will automatically add to the CNC; but outside of there, they will continue adding to StayiNatHome and we will later give out regional summaries of all your data. Are you ready? Go for it!!

24 April 2020

Back to Latest news